Posted - 2017.02.13 22:29:16 -
[1] - Quote
Once again, CSM 11 visited CCP at our Reykjavik HQ for their second summit. This involved four days of meetings between CSM members and CCP developers. As part of the summit process, a set of meeting minutes are released. You can now view the meeting minutes here.

Please feel free to discuss the minutes and ask further questions to the members of the CSM in this thread.

CCP asked the CSM if they felt that overall, it was more important to make the PVE content more difficult, something you must think about each time. CCP then asked about how much effort and learning the CSM through was reasonable for a player to go from being a new player to be able to complete the highest level content.

I had hoped the overhaul of the NPC mission system was farther along than these exploratory questions suggest. It's desperately needed.

On the first question, I don't think PvE needs to be harder overall. Some small, newly authored, randomly selected goals inside of a mission could keep the overall difficulty (if measured in damage and hitpoints) the same, while providing new choices we haven't seen before. For example, one time you're asked to rescue the Damsel just like it is today, from a structure with the usual defenders. Another time, Zor undocks as you approach or start shooting the structure, takes the Damsel and microjumps (one time only) 100km away: forget the structure, you've got to stop Zor.

On the second question, I think new players should be able to get into most level 4's during their second month; a sense of progression and ability is important for retention; every month a new player has to decide if its worth it to keep paying.

The Burner missions provide great info up front so a player can make an informed choice about the (intense) difficulty, its a good template to follow for the most difficult content to help avoid morale-crushing losses. The other level 1-4 mission texts aren't nearly as helpful; most players are recommended to consult external mission reports. Marauders were overhauled (Bastion mode) with the realization that level 4's were too grindy, and here's the ship class players should aspire to fly, for best isk/hr.

The ability to cope with real-life eye strain and/or have more displayed at once because of monitor resolutions don't make a player good. The overview UI in a fleet fight, particularly small gang, is like trying to read a financial spreadsheet where the rows and values keep on changing order.

Posted - 2017.02.14 17:10:21 -
[8] - Quote
This new focus on AI, PvE content is frightening me ... do you guys even think before requesting new improved AI NPC which pose a threat to players? What I learned in the last couple of months, only a minority does PvE for fun only.

This new focus on AI, PvE content is frightening me ... do you guys even think before requesting new improved AI NPC which pose a threat to players? What I learned in the last couple of months, only a minority does PvE for fun only.

Because EVE PvE is not intrinsically fun. If it were, more people might look for it to be.

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

This new focus on AI, PvE content is frightening me ... do you guys even think before requesting new improved AI NPC which pose a threat to players? What I learned in the last couple of months, only a minority does PvE for fun only.

Because EVE PvE is not intrinsically fun. If it were, more people might look for it to be.

The moment shooting rats in EvE becomes intrinsically fun, it end's to be a PvP game.

The moment shooting rats in EvE becomes intrinsically fun, it end's to be a PvP game.

The more ppl will do pve the more pvp targets you will have. I'm more concerned about all this NPE thing. It seems to not accomplish anything spectacular yet. After initial boom PCU is dropping, but hey new SKINs everywhere...

Posted - 2017.02.15 16:38:47 -
[12] - Quote
Good NPE is important, I didn't try the current version yet, so can't judge about.

My comment above was about that CCP has to put theme park like resources in making PVE intrinsically fun, including new content, stories every patch... also people are lazy, if the reward does not scale with the effort/risk, people will just do it in secure space for fun or don't do it at all because other stuff gives more ISK/h. Hence scaling the risk and complexity (aka "fun"), requires to scale the reward as well, which leads to balancing issues. See the new clever mining NPCs, only few bother, the reward does not justify the effort and risk. The drifter incursions are a second example, first people found clever strategies and the reward was too high, and when it was cut back, nobody bothered to run them anymore.

Good NPE is important, I didn't try the current version yet, so can't judge about.

My comment above was about that CCP has to put theme park like resources in making PVE intrinsically fun, including new content, stories every patch... also people are lazy, if the reward does not scale with the effort/risk, people will just do it in secure space for fun or don't do it at all because other stuff gives more ISK/h. Hence scaling the risk and complexity (aka "fun"), requires to scale the reward as well, which leads to balancing issues. See the new clever mining NPCs, only few bother, the reward does not justify the effort and risk. The drifter incursions are a second example, first people found clever strategies and the reward was too high, and when it was cut back, nobody bothered to run them anymore.

Question is what is good NPE?

We don't need new NPC AI. I've wondering what is the purpose for those new mining fleets. We can interact with only by shooting them. What the point here? So miner gankers have more fun? It has nothing to do with improving any pve experience, apart from I can see the fleets on my d-scan sometimes.

We need something more than "warp to site, shoot trigger, loot, warp off". After 15 sites most of pve players will uninstall. Where is the fun? In unpredictability. In difficulty. I've done all kind of noncombat exploration sites, all types of 1-4 DED sites, most of unrated complexes. Loot table is good (most of it), but they are all the same. This is no game for pve oriented players. They will be bored too quickly.

My comment above was about that CCP has to put theme park like resources in making PVE intrinsically fun, including new content, stories every patch... also people are lazy, if the reward does not scale with the effort/risk, people will just do it in secure space for fun...

... or don't do it at all because other stuff gives more ISK/h. Hence scaling the risk and complexity (aka "fun"), requires to scale the reward as well, which leads to balancing issues.

Not sure if it is a problem though. Look at Burner missions.

Tipa Riot wrote:

See the new clever mining NPCs, only few bother, the reward does not justify the effort and risk. The drifter incursions are a second example, first people found clever strategies and the reward was too high, and when it was cut back, nobody bothered to run them anymore.

The problem as i see it: CCP cannot find sweet-spot (or they do not want to).They either make stupid AI low-reward NPCs (look at recent event) or totally overpowered NPCs with big rewards (Burners, i'm looking at you!). As result such things are not popular among 'casuals'.

I believe exploration is a perfect example of properly done PvE. It is totally PvE but to find it people go for low-sec and 0.0-space and even wormholes providing PvP.

But why do you do PvE? What is your motivation? Would you still do it, when it's more exciting, but without any valuable reward for the time spent?

Why do we play games? To be bored? It's doesn't matter how high reward would be if game become second job. If I'm willing to spent part of my free time to the game I want its mechanism to be entertaining. Exploration is all about rewards ofc, thats why we "exploring", to find some good stuff. PI is good example, it may bring a lot of reward (ISK) but did you ever do it? I manage to do it for a week. Then I throw up and went back to exploration.

PI is good example, it may bring a lot of reward (ISK) but did you ever do it?

I do and have a nice 5 planet setup in Nullsec doing R0->P2 with minimal maintenance effort.

My personal challenge and fun is to come out ahead in all kind of competitive situations using only one char, which also includes getting same/more while spending significantly less effort than others. Incursions are an example of an activity I tried and won't touch again ... it's tedious, attention consuming and gives not enough reward compared to what I can get by just chilling in Perimeter. What I liked was the in-official challenge to get hands on the Elite Drone AI chips when the price spiked, so I ran a lot of missions to get as much agents as possible locked into the specific mission to farm them for a week.

I am surprised that nobody has yet picked up on the potentially coming changes with a new forum. If i have understood correct CCP will give up (or will no be able) to binding a name in the forum to an actual character that belongs to the respective EVE account. I personally find it very undesirable not to be able to match a forum post to an in game character. That opens a lot of possible abuse situations. I hope the CSM will push to make sure that does not go ahead the way it looks in the minutes.

CCP then explained that they are working on deciding on what they want the next expansion to be.

Above quote is from CSM meeting minutes.Is it just me thinking why are they so late thinking about next expansion...(?)

I got the vibe that there was a lot of "we don't know how to do that" coming from CCP. As though they've just about hit their limits for what they can produce, and now are in a state where they are desperately just trying to keep the thing up and running. They seem to be always hiring but never really increasing their capabilities. Are they bleeding devs as fast as they are bleeding players?

Maxim 6. If violence wasnGÇÖt your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.

Posted - 2017.02.18 14:54:16 -
[22] - Quote
We don't know what resources are consumed by "NDA stuff" or other CCP projects, but I also get the impression that EvE development atm lacks of skilled resources, in both areas, creativity and coding.

Nullification on T3Cs and combat ships was touched upon as well as the merits of static bubbles. ItGÇÖs very much in flux, but there will be changes made there. IGÇÖm just gonna say that there are people that use T3Cs for high-tier explo content and gamestyle, and removing those options would be a huge disservice as there is nothing to realistically replace the options an explo T3C gives.

Once again, CSM 11 visited CCP at our Reykjavik HQ for their second summit. This involved four days of meetings between CSM members and CCP developers. As part of the summit process, a set of meeting minutes are released. You can now view the meeting minutes here.

Please feel free to discuss the minutes and ask further questions to the members of the CSM in this thread.

Moon Mining and Drilling Platforms: The majority of this session was dedicated to discussion of the next planned Upwell structures. A dev blog covering this topic is being written and these parts of the minutes will be made public at a later date.

Moon Mining and Drilling Platforms: The majority of this session was dedicated to discussion of the next planned Upwell structures. A dev blog covering this topic is being written and these parts of the minutes will be made public at a later date.

It worked for me. Perhaps there is some caching issue? Maybe try from another browser or device?

(http://cdn1.eveonline.com/community/csm/Meetings/summit/CSM11-S2.pdf) If that should be the correct path, I see the same words on page 22-23, nothing new about moon mining, even if PDF is downloaded in a VM I had not used before. The @NuclearHail twitter quote is from someone else also not seeing what they hoped to see.

It worked for me. Perhaps there is some caching issue? Maybe try from another browser or device?

(http://cdn1.eveonline.com/community/csm/Meetings/summit/CSM11-S2.pdf) If that should be the correct path, I see the same words on page 22-23, nothing new about moon mining, even if PDF is downloaded in a VM I had not used before. The @NuclearHail twitter quote is from someone else also not seeing what they hoped to see.

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